The National Student Speech-Language Hearing Association at California State University, Los Angeles is an active chapter of NSSLHA. This space is reserved for notices on upcoming meetings and events, discussions related to our field and communication with our members. The content is not necessarily the views of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA) or the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA).

Monday, March 10, 2008

Sharon Hendricks was trained in SLP at University of Washington in Seattle.When she was a grad student, she became a TA for “American speech sounds” for international students, often doctoral students who had brilliant minds and needed competency in English to communicate with Americans.There are many similar students on our campus!

Accent modification is about breaking down these barriers to communication.The goal is not to “reduce” an accent, but increase communication/intelligibility.You can do this with an “accent”, which is an actually interesting and important part of a person.An accent tells about their heritage and their culture; we shouldn’t want to eradicate these.Modification refers to change of behavior, giving tips/tools on how to produce certain sounds or words to be more intelligible.

Sharon works now full-time at LACC, teaching classes for non-native English speakers.There’s a lot of ethnic and age diversity on that campus.There is an effect of age on second-language acquisition; it becomes more difficult because speech sound patterns become imprinted.Many of her students are older Russian women who want to get a job to support their family, but most of their social life is with Russians.Younger people might have a career path in mind.

Components of accent modification:

1)1) Talk with client to know what/why they want to learn.Most people who do accent modification, do it one-on-one (even though she teaches a class).What do they want to communicate for?How much do they want to learn (functional intelligibility, expanded vocabulary?) Intelligibility really affects your social life because people react to you, you might withdraw from going out into the neighborhood and send your daughter to the store instead.These things lead to emotional frustration.

2)2) After the initial interview with client: they need to hear the difference between their production and the intended production (e.g. /th/ vs /z/), which is not too different from articulation therapy with kids.If they can’t discriminate the difference, they probably can’t make it.This is especially true for /r/ and /l/.Then, they practice discriminating with minimal pairs (contrasting vowels or consonants).She covers her mouth to prevent visual cues.For example, the “a” in “bad” is very distinct to American English.She teaches them the parts of the mouth (alveolar ridge, hard palate, etc.), IPA, place/manner/voicing, then they go to the speech clinic and practice the sounds that are particular their own language.

3)3) The biggest component is practice.She emphasizes that her students need to spend a lot of time with native speakers, to listen to radio stations like NPR (clear pronunciation, educational, etc.), watch American movies (hear the dialogue, see context, stress and intonation), ask a classmate out to coffee.It takes a lot of initiation on student’s part; they want you to “fix” them but you give them tools and the rest is up to them.Natural language environments are very important.

LACC has a speech lab.The students come to the lab and listen to different sounds on headphone with native speakers pronounce the word as they practice, recording themselves on the computer so that they can compare productions.This has been really effective.

Books she uses:

“The Communication of Standard American English” by Luter.

“Fundamentals of Voice and Articulation” by Lyle V. Mayer

“Speaking Clearly “by Modisett and Luter

Some arenas to work in accent modification: Private practice, working at a city college or adult school, CORP-span (corporate SLP).For example, she’s giving a talk at Boeing, 10-session series for engineers.Remember, however, that we are not ESL teachers. This is outside our professional scope of practice.

Relevant websites:

ASHA has phonemic inventories for different languages, www.asha.org

accent.gmu.edu - speech accent archive, listen to various accents/languages. It allows you to look up the native phonetic inventory of most languages.

web.ku.edu/idea - great resource for theater/drama students, allows you to listen to accents from all around the world.

"3 men are going on a business trip. They decide that in order to save money, they are going to share a room. One man goes to the front desk and asks how much a room is. The front desk attendant replies $30. The businessman collects $10 from each of his co-workers and they pay for the room and go upstairs. Shortly after, the front desk attendant realizes that he made a mistake; the room was only $26! He gives the $4 to the bellboy and tells him to run it up to the guys room. The bellboy knows that it will not be easy to split up $4, so he puts $1 in his pocket, and gives $1 back to each of the 3 business men ($3). Therefore, each man paid $9 for the room… 9x3= 27, The bellhop put $1 in his pocket…. 27+1=28So, where did the rest of the original $30 go?"

The answer:

This is a very old and misleading question. Of the original $30, we know exactly where it all went: $26 went to the hotel, $1 went to the bellhop and $3 went back to the guys in the room. The mistake lies in saying that each man paid $9 for the room. They did not each pay $9 for the room, rather they each paid $10 for the combined cost of the room, the $1 that the bellhop kept and the $3 that they received. $27-$1=$26, which is the price of the room, and $26+$1+$3=$30, which is the total amount of money involved. There is no missing part.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

The Minority Student Leadership Program is open to students who wish to enhance their leadership skills, interact with leaders in the professions, and learn how their association works. Now in its 10th program, the MSLP has given over 275 students from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds insight into their leadership abilities, a better understanding of how leaders affect change within ASHA, and has empowered these students to take risks and meet their own challenges. All students are eligible to apply; however, preference will be given to students from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds that have historically been under-represented in the Association.